Okay like in Civ3 it looks like diplomacy is key in MOO3. However I have no clue how "contact" works.

I meet other fleets of ships in orbit around a planet. Yet I dont "make contact with them".

My fleets move / dont move all of a sudden I make contact with them.

My fleets move / dont move and I loose contact with them.

ARR.

I almost prefer never to be in contact with the monkeys out there as this removes spies :)

Any one care to share their knowledge observations?

Yeah, anyone know how to establish contact with a civ?

It's almost like a random event now, when I get "Our diplomats has contacted another Civilization" or something... No Idea how to do establish contact myself :(

In order to have diplomatic channels you have to have a colony of yours within two jumps of one of their colonies OR you both need to be in the Orion Senate. I couldn't figure this out either until I read the answer in a post on some other board, and then it suddenly made sense.

Yep, and remember it has to be a working colony, not just an outpost or less than 1k people colony. :mischief:

Concerning the importance of diplomacy, I don´t think it necessarely plays a major role like in Civ3. You couldn´t do without it there.
But in MoO3 you can choose whether you want to go the diplomatic way and tech/trade broker with every other civ, or if you want to more or less ignore everyone else, except their spies, of course.
So it can play a major role, but you can also decide to ignore it more or less. :yeah:

I´m currently playing a game as the Harvesters/Ikthul and I even got 2 or 3 trade treaties and 1 non-aggression treaty signed for a few turns in the beginnining. But now I´m at war with everyone but the New Orions, they don´t reply to any treaty proposal anyway. But do I care? :evil:
Nope, they´ll feel the wrath of the Harvesters soon.
:D

Hmm...seems pretty lame - if you make contact you should be able to make arrangement to not-fight even if trading is not allowed - although science should be allowed to be traded. I am glad someone brought this up because I too was wonder why I never seemed to make contact.

Excellent! This really helps! I know for sure just where my fleet is heading next. GO PLANTARY BOMBARDMENT :)